


a goddamn blaze in the dark (and you started it)

by orionseye



Category: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canon Related, Canon Rewrite, Elections, Fluff and Angst, Homophobia, Liam's POV, M/M, Mentions of homophobia, Outing, Rated teen for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29275272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orionseye/pseuds/orionseye
Summary: “You had a thing with who?” Spencer asks, cocking an eyebrow.“No one. It’s nothing.““Oh c’mon. We finally get to the juicy shit and you won’t tell me?“Liam bites his lip, stifling a laugh. “I had a thing with my best friend. All through high school.”“I thought you had a girlfriend?”“I did! I thought I was a proud heterosexual until I came here and figured shit out. We–we just, didn’t talk about it. Somewhere in our minds, the whole “making out for an hour” thing was, like, straight or something.”a.k.a, liam and spencer’s adventures through the tendency of a famous ex-boyfriend to cause international scandals.
Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, Liam/Spencer (Red White & Royal Blue)
Comments: 72
Kudos: 269





	a goddamn blaze in the dark (and you started it)

**Author's Note:**

> title from ivy by taylor swift :-)
> 
> note that a few bits of this dialogue comes directly from the source material and is not mine !

Liam does not believe in soulmates.

It’s just Disney fairytale, singing-birds-and-mice, heteronormative bullshit. 

He told Spencer this two weeks before they started dating. They were lying on their backs under one of the big oak trees on the University of Texas campus. Early September weather in Austin was too pleasant to study indoors, and the courseload for the beginning of their senior year wasn’t starting off too horribly anyways. They could afford to get sidetracked, so they did.

“What, you don’t believe in love? Since when are you such a downer?” Spencer asks, turning his head to face him. 

“It’s not that I don’t believe in love, just not the whole. Y’know.”

“I actually don’t know.”

“The whole _thing,_ dude.” Liam gestured aimlessly to the space above him. He’s looking at nothing in particular, fixated on some spot above his head, in the foliage of the tree. “I simply don’t believe in it.”

“You’ve gotta be more specific than that.”

“It’s like,” Liam starts slowly, “There's an implication to the whole soulmates thing, to the companionship, to the marriage, that eventually you assimilate. You find a person and then you blend in, and go off and have your two point five kids and a white picket fence, and there’s no other way to do it. Or maybe that's just how I was raised. Either way, I'm far past that. I was almost there, the perfect son and lover and brother and whatever else other people wanted me to be. I was captain of the football team and I had straight A’s and I even had a girlfriend at some point.” 

Spencer laughs a little at that.

“I think I fumbled the ball when I figured out I was gay, and realized that it’s never that simple, and even if it was, I’d never really be invited to participate in that kind of society. So fuck it, y’know? I can redefine what a relationship means to me personally, to love and have a family or whatever, but the vocabulary that straight people already use to describe it will never fit. I just don’t believe in soulmates because they don’t believe in me. Or something.”

“Or something.” Spencer repeats quietly.

Liam finally turns to face him. He lays on his side, arm resting under his head. “Do I sound crazy? I totally sound crazy.” 

Spencer grins. “Not in the slightest.” 

Liam grins back. 

“You had a girlfriend?” Spencer asks, an amused tone to his voice.

“For three miserable, miserable weeks, when I was seventeen. Never again.”

“Ever had a boyfriend?”

“I had a thing with some guy freshman year here. It lasted maybe twice as long as my high school girlfriend, and that’s a generous estimate. Apart from that, I had a thing with, um–.” Liam pauses. 

“You had a thing with who?” Spencer asks, cocking an eyebrow.

“No one. It’s nothing.“

“Oh c’mon. We finally get to the juicy shit and you won’t tell me?“

Liam bites his lip, stifling a laugh. “I had a thing with my best friend. All through high school.”

“I thought you had a girlfriend?”

“I did! I thought I was a proud heterosexual until I came here and figured shit out. We–we just, didn’t talk about it. Somewhere in our minds, the whole “making out for an hour” thing was, like, straight or something.”

Spencer lets himself laugh fully now. Liam does too, because honestly, _what the fuck was he thinking?_

“I have got to meet this mystery boy. What’s his name? Does he go here? Is he hot?”

“You absolutely will not.”

“Why not? What are you hiding?” Spencer inches closer. “I thought friends didn’t keep secrets,” he whispers. 

“It’s a secret for a reason, Spence.” He whispers back.

“What’s gonna happen if you tell me? It’s not like this is a matter of national security. Is it? Did you fuck like, the future king of England or something? Is the Secret Service gonna come after me?”

Liam giggles, “They might?”

“Intriguing. I don’t believe you though. Who is it?”

“Not saying.”

And he didn’t. The conversation eventually shifted away from Liam’s adolescence to Spencer’s, stories about his first boyfriend and parties thrown in abandoned warehouses. It’s all so Texan, Liam completely loses himself in it, in Spencer and the breeze and the grass, soft and green beneath his fingers. They get so caught up that they barely make it to their next class in time.

Liam’s mystery boy stays a mystery. 

~

It happens so unexpectedly that he’s almost sure he’s dreaming. 

He’s at lunch. He’s been dating Spencer for months now. 

His phone rings, and in big letters on his phone screen, Alex’s name is undeniably printed. He almost hangs up without thinking.

Except.

They haven’t talked in over a year. If he’s calling, there’s gotta be a reason. 

Liam’s curiosity overtakes his annoyance. He picks up.

“Hello?” 

“Uh, hey, Liam. It’s Alex.”

“I know,” 

“How, um, how have you been?”

Seriously?

“You wanna tell me why you’re really calling, Alex?”

“Oh,” he starts and stops, tries again. “This might sound weird. But, um. Back in high school, did we have, like, a thing? Did I miss that?”

_Fucker._

Liam drops the fork in his hand. “Are you seriously calling me right now to talk about this? I’m at lunch with my boyfriend.”

“Oh.” A pause. “Sorry.”

Spencer looks at him from across the table and Liam knows he owes him some explanation. He puts the phone down.

“Who’s that?” Spencer asks.

“It’s Alex.”

“Is it that friend you had like half a year ago that totally ghosted you?”

“Yeah, him.”

“Why is he calling you, like, now? Doesn’t he have anything better to do?”

"I don’t know, babe.” 

Liam picks up the phone again. 

“What exactly are you asking me?”

“I mean, like, we messed around, but did it, like, mean something?”

“I don’t think I can answer that question for you,” Liam tells him.

“Right,” Alex says. “You’re right.”

“Look, man, I don’t know what kind of sexual crisis you’re having right now, like, four years after it would have been useful, but, well. I’m not saying what we did in high school makes you gay or bi or whatever, but I can tell you I’m gay, and that even though I acted like what we were doing wasn’t gay back then, it super was.” He sighs. “Does that help, Alex? My Bloody Mary is here and I need to talk to it about this phone call.”

“Um, yeah,” Alex says. “I think so. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Liam replies, exasperated.

“And, um. I’m sorry?”

“Jesus Christ,” He groans, and hangs up.

This was not how he thought he was gonna spend his afternoon.

Spencer, lighthearted as always, doesn’t seem to mind the fact that they were interrupted at all. Liam recognizes a curiosity in his eyes that’s definitely far overtaken any annoyance he might’ve felt. 

“There’s something you’re not telling me about this Alex kid.” is how Spencer chooses to break the silence. “Spill.”

Liam sighs. He really doesn’t want to do this. ”Remind me what you do know about him?” I guess I can start from there,” he answers reluctantly.

“Ooh, let’s see. You know him from some unknown, unnamed place and time in your life. You used to be great friends until his quote-on-quote “busy schedule” made him too lazy to call you. I remember that because you were a total bitch about it when you told me about it.”

“I was not!” 

“You were the most pissed I’d ever seen you. I’m also guessing, at least from what I overheard, that this is that guy you totally had a thing for all through high school, and he just figured it out?”

Liam grimaces. “Yeah, that’s about right.”

Spencer chuckles. “What kind of repressed do you have to be for it to take four years for you to find out that what y’all had wasn’t exactly the straightest behaviour? I almost feel bad for the kid.”

“I don’t blame him, honestly. He’s kind of–“

Liam stops before he can say it.

“You’re not telling me something, babe. I can tell. Spit it out! I’ve been trying to squeeze this story out of you for months.”

“I can’t!”

“Why not?”

“It's just like, secret. Like a super secret.”

“I can keep secrets.”

“You have to promise it stays this way. Seriously”

“Of course. I’ll even swear on it.” Spencer says with a smirk.

Liam takes a deep breath. 

“Okay um, so like.”

Here it goes.

“Y’know the, er, president?” He starts.

“Of this country? I’m vaguely familiar. Lometa Longshot and whatnot. She’s from here, right? Don’t know what that has to do with this.”

“Yeah um, her. She has um. Kids? Two of them. A daughter and uh. A son. Who I, er, might’ve known. We went to school together, and I was friends with him. For like. Fifteen years. Um. You do the math.” 

Spencer’s eyes go wide. Liam averts his, and opts for staring at a spot on the tablecloth in front of him. 

“So Alex. Your friend Alex. Is Alex. As in. _Claremont?_ Alex Claremont?”

Liam winces. “The one and only.”

Out of all of the reactions he thought Spencer would have, laughter was not one of them. But here his boyfriend is: bright-eyed and absolutely losing it.

Liam bites back a laugh of his own. “What’s so funny?”

“Oh my god, you fucked the First Son of the goddamn country and you didn’t tell me?”

“I didn’t know I had to?”

“You tell me everything, babe. This is like, ten times more interesting than bitching about midterms, and you had the audacity to keep it a secret!”

“To be fair, he is super closeted. Like, extremely. He barely knows it himself, whatever it is.” 

“He clearly is getting closer to figuring it out though,” Spencer says, gesturing to Liam’s phone on the table, “if he’s calling you to ask, whatever he asked. Which was...”

Liam sighs. “He wanted to know if what we did back then _“meant anything”_.” He makes heavy quotes in the air. 

“Did it, though? Mean anything, I mean.” Spencer asks.

A pause.

Did it?

Did it mean anything when Alex showed up on his back lawn at ungodly hours at night? Did it mean anything when he’d climb through Liam’s window? What about when he’d spend the night? When Liam would wake up with Alex pressed tightly beside him in his twin bed? 

He never thought about it before. 

“It might’ve?” is how he chooses to answer.

“Might’ve?”

“It wasn’t supposed to. I mean, we were in high school.” 

“That only seems like it would make it mean more to you, Liam.”

Spencer sees right through him. It’s better to talk than keep silent.

So he does. 

He tells him about everything. How they met, the first day of first grade. How they had been inseparable every day since. How when Liam was thirteen, he knew he was gay. How it was Alex’s fault.

Spencer laughs at his word choice, but Liam swears it’s true. He couldn’t blame Alex for not knowing who he was or what he wanted, but he sure as hell could blame him for making Liam know what he did. He’s still got the same type he did as a sexually confused teenager, and he finds the same brown eyes and all-American smile in every boy he’s ever liked since. 

He tells Spencer this too. 

He keeps going. This and this and that. The awkward locker rooms and the missing Adderall in his bathroom cabinet every time Alex stayed the night. The times he knew Alex was having a bad night by the taste of whiskey on his tongue, the days Liam felt responsible for his well-being. 

He talks about the years after high school, When Ellen became the President and not just his friend’s mom. He talks about Alex’s first girlfriend. Nora was perfect. Beautiful and intelligent and almost too good for him, if that was even possible. He’d met her in person once; Alex and June were in Texas for the summer and brought her along. They’d gone to brunch, and Nora wouldn’t stop cracking jokes the whole time. She created a dynamic he didn’t even realize was possible. She was Alex’s girlfriend and his best friend, everything he needed in one swoop. Deep down, Liam hoped that the only difference between her and him to Alex was convenience.

He tells Spencer about his first boyfriend, how he asked Liam out two days after he’d known Alex had moved on, how he said yes without thinking.

“You say moved on,” Spencer interrupts, “like there was something to explicitly move on from.”

“Hm?”

“Y’all never dated. It seems like he barely knew what he was doing, sure, but neither did you.”

“So?”

“So that answers your question, babe. It meant something. I mean clearly. If how you reacted afterwards is a measure of how you felt.”

“But–”

“But what?”

“I just, I don’t know. It’s weird to think about.”

“No shit. This is probably the weirdest thing you’ve ever told me.”

Liam laughs. He realizes, for the first time that afternoon, just how out of pocket this entire story must’ve seemed to Spencer.

“I’m sorry for all of this, I really am.” He says, gesturing vaguely into the air, to the stories he told and ones that were still left unsaid, details for later.

“Are you kidding? You were the sexual awakening to America’s most eligible bachelor and you think I’m complaining?”

“I clearly wasn’t his awakening, Spence, if it took him so long to figure it out.”

“Oh my god, he really just figured it out now, huh?”

“Do you see why I can’t blame him for not knowing though? Imagine it. You’re like, barely a legal adult, and you’re finally figuring shit out, and all of a sudden you’re on a global pedestal and the cover of Teen Vogue.” Liam shrugs. “I would’ve pushed it aside too.”

“He hurt you though. It’s not his fault that he didn’t know, but, y'know, it’s worth acknowledging.”

“He did.” Liam responds quietly. “I didn’t realize before just how much.”

Spencer smiles weakly. 

They sit there in silence for a moment, two.

“Have you ever been to the White House?”

“Oh, fuck off dude.”

~

Liam’s barely awake when it happens.

Spencer is. He’s the one to tell him.

“Babe?”

Liam makes a mix of disgruntled noises. From the darkness in their room, he can tell it’s dead in the middle of the night. Only orange streetlight creeps its way through their shuttered windows.

“You, er, you might want to see this.”

He hands Liam his phone gently, like he’s fragile. Liam’s not sure what to do with it.

He rubs his eyes, and the headline he sees when the world comes back into focus wakes him right up.

**QUEEN HENRY! INSIDE THE PRINCE’S GAY AFFAIR WITH THE FIRST SON OF THE UNITED STATES**

Liam sits up now, the words he’s sure he’s supposed to have for this situation tangled up somewhere in his throat.

He _thought_ that something had brought Alex around to figuring it out. There was a guy, he knew that much. He just never thought that it would–

He scrolls through articles after articles on Spencer’s phone. Not much of it sticks. He recognizes some key words, though. _Secret affair, International relations, Involved since February._ Every article seems to be a carbon copy of the next. _Romantic and sexual relationship, The Claremont Administration, Waterloo Letters._

Waterloo Letters?

Even their fucking emails leaked. 

He barely registers that Spencer’s there until he’s pulled up a laptop. Right now, it's just him and Alex. 

Just him and Alex, cross legged in front of the TV doing math homework. Nothing can touch them, nothing can break their concentration. They race to the bottom of every page. Alex always wins. They’re eleven.

Just him and Alex, kissing someone for the first time. Well, it’s his first kiss. It’s Alex’s hundredth. Liam learns what it's to be in love for the first of many times. Alex learns to ignore something he feels, how to tame a blaze restless and alive as he is. They’re fifteen. 

It’s just him and Alex, and they’re fourteen and they’re sixteen and they’re nine and they’re here, and yet nowhere at all. The boy he’s known for eternity let himself feel for the first time, let a spark he’d harbored his whole life become a flame. 

And this was how the world repaid him.

He’s staring at Alex’s love’s barren bones, his blood the ink staining the pages of what’s soon to be the greatest love story ever told. Liam is sure of it. 

Alex was offered no mercy, no place to hide. It’s everything. Every snarky remark and heartfelt compliment and dirty little comment. 

It’s so cruel. He feels sick.

“I feel,” Spencer starts, in a half-whisper, “so bad for them.”

He looks up from his phone, articles and phrases still swirling in his mind. He tries to find the words again, but they’re stuck. This time, buried deep under the thoughts and opinions of just about everyone else in the world.

He knows that he and Alex don’t talk. That they didn’t before Alex called him in January and they haven't since. Even on the days when Liam itched to ask him more, he held back. Deep down, he’d always wanted to know what happened, why he chose to talk to Liam and not anyone else, who it was that made him realize. He won’t bother to call now. He doesn’t want to add to the pressure.

At least now he knows the answer to some of his questions.

Time passes at a rate which neither Liam nor Spencer are quite aware of. Their bedroom is silent except for the rush of blood in Liam’s ears. Seconds become minutes, become hours, as he reads.

Slurs. Speculation. Lies. 

Liam thinks about the church he went to as a kid. He thinks about the preacher, the sermons. Some kids in Texas were blessed with accepting families. He wasn’t. He thinks about the way he felt about himself after years of internalizing what other people said. Scrubbing his skin in the shower until he bled, as if he could ever wash the guilt off his skin. 

He and Spencer don’t read the emails. They stop reading articles about it too. 

Liam says nothing. Spencer understands. He lets Liam rest his head on his shoulder.

Liam had never been one for religion, not after his experiences as a kid, but he sends up a prayer for Alex anyways.

~

The following weeks were a mess. Liam didn’t know he would be roped into it until he was.

Alex is a public figure. Liam was his best friend. The paper trail was undeniable, Instagram posts where he was tagged, witty twitter back-and-forths from 2015. 

Of course people were curious.

The first call came four days later, not even an hour after Alex gave his coming out speech.

And then there was another, and another, and another. 

“Who was he to you?–”

“Care to comment on your relationship?–”

“I’m a reporter with Fox–”

A dozen emails, countless Instagram DMs. Each responded to with the same amount of nonchalance. Or so Liam hoped.

Deep down, he was angry. He was furious. Seething even. He woke up everyday a side character to the most polarized and heated debate surrounding Alex there has ever been. It was barely even a scandal, yet the press and public treated Alex and Henry’s relationship like a dog at their door, a bird in its mouth; an unwanted surprise, something that could be palatable wrapped in a foul reality.

He told Alex that much, too.

****

**LIAM  
1\. I wish we hadn’t been such dumb assholes back then so we both could have helped each other out with stuff. 2. Jsyk, a reporter from some right-wing website called me yesterday to ask me about my history with you. I told him to go fuck himself, but I thought you’d want to know.**

**ALEX  
1\. if only. we were beyond idiots. **

**2\. i wonder where those fuckers got the nerve. I’ve blocked half of the journalist population of washington and they still manage to call my personal number**

**i’m sorry**

**LIAM  
Don’t be. It’s not your fault.**

**ALEX  
i know it’s not **

**LIAM  
Then what are you apologizing for?**

**ALEX  
just about literally everything else**

**i was so far up my ass i didn’t notice how bad the whole thing was**

**you must’ve felt like shit**

**LIAM  
That’s a fair estimate**

**ALEX  
friends again? or something?**

**i’m in texas on election day**

**come to the thing we’re having? bring your boyfriend?**

**please?**

****

How could he say no to Alex?

That’s how he and Spencer end up, somehow, at a party with the United States President.

Well, President for a few more months. At least.

They arrive fashionably late, blending in almost immediately with the stream of people coming in and out. Poll runners and family friends and reporters flood the room. The hum of _what ifs_ and _whens_ is heavy in the air, and he feels it building in him with every step on the linoleum floors.

He scans the room for a familiar face. _Alex, Alex, Alex, Alex._ He doesn’t notice he and Spencer are walking right towards him until they crash together, almost tumbling towards the pre-emptive victory cake on a nearby table.

“Jesus, sorry,” Alex says, immediately reaching for a pile of napkins. The Texan drawl in his voice is warm, albeit washed away under four years of living on the East Coast.

He’s still the same boy, at least on the outside. Same curls, same eyes, same all-American charm. 

“If you knock over another expensive cake,” Liam starts, “I’m pretty sure your mom is gonna disinherit you.”

Alex turns to face him, eyes widening, “Oh my God, you came!”

“Of course I did. I mean, it kind of seemed like the Secret Service were gonna come requisition me from my apartment if I didn’t come.”

Alex laughs. “Look, the presidency hasn’t changed me that much. I’m still as aggressive a party instigator as I ever was.”

“I’d be disappointed if you weren’t, man.”

“Listen, I,” Alex starts, “I wanted to thank you—”

“Do not,” Liam interrupts him. “Seriously. Okay? We’re cool. We’ll always be cool.” 

And it’s true. Alex has a place in Liam’s heart. He’s a part of his history, nudged safely in the nook between a fearful childhood and fearless adulthood. How could he not forgive him? 

He makes a dismissive gesture in the air, as if that explains anything at all, and nudges Spencer at his side.

“Anyway, this is Spencer, my boyfriend.”

“Alex,” Alex introduces himself. The glint in his eye is familiar. “Good to meet you, man.”

“It’s an honor,” Spencer says earnestly. “My mom canvassed for your mom when she ran for Congress back in the day, so like, we go way back. She’s the first president I ever voted for.”

“Okay, Spence, be cool,” Liam says. He puts an arm around Spencer’s shoulders. He knows what that means to Alex; he’d spent a few too many family dinners over, and knows how unfavorable Liam’s parent’s opinions are, all things considered. These days, Spencer’s parents are the family Liam never had and never knew he needed, and he knows that’s all Alex ever wished for him and more.

Once again, Liam opts to communicate anything but what he’s thinking.

“This guy shit his pants on the bus on the way back from the aquarium in fourth grade, so like, he’s not that big of a deal.”

“For the last time, you douchebag,” Alex huffs, “that was Adam Villanueva, not me!”

“Yeah, I know what I saw,” Liam says.

Alex is just opening his mouth to argue when someone shouts his name. A call to duty.

“Shit. I gotta go, but Liam, we have, like, a shitload to catch up on. Can we hang this weekend? Let’s hang this weekend. I’m in town all weekend. Let’s hang this weekend.”

Before Liam even manages to agree, Alex is off again. 

He and Spencer spend the rest of the night watching the party from the edges. He sees people he knows, volunteers he recognizes from university classes and old friends. They spot Henry for the first time, too, though neither of them have the guts to go up and actually talk to him. Liam knows exactly what Alex sees in him. He’s all clean lines and windswept hair and a strong jawline, and it’s all almost infuriatingly attractive. They sure as hell make one power couple.

The anxiety of the night builds and builds and builds, pressure squeezing in Liam’s chest. States are being called left and right, the large flatscreens flashing red, blue, red again.

And all of a sudden there are three states left to call. 

They call Nevada. 

For Richards. 

Which means it’s down to Texas. 

Beautiful, beautiful Texas.

It’s down to right here, right now. 

The election feels, for the first time that night, as real as the ground beneath Liam’s feet. It’s no longer some abstract idea, some representation of the cumulative voice of millions. It’s down to a few thousands. A high school pep-rally tenfold. His next door neighbour, his cousins. It’s personal.

Liam knows it’s going to be blue before Anderson Cooper calls it. He feels it in his bones, in the place where every other fundamental truth about him lays. 

That doesn’t stop him from absolutely losing his shit when it's official.

The first round of confetti falls. The second one does too. It's a mess.

He tumbles into an open mouth kiss, a hug, a handshake. He doesn’t know who he’s with or where the people came from, but it doesn’t matter.

Ellen’s voice is ringing in his ears, bluebell and crystal clear as Austin skies

Four more years.

He’s so happy. 

When the Claremont-Diaz family stumble onto stage, he and Spencer cheer louder than Liam thought was possible.

When Henry finally comes over to say hi, Liam knows he knows. He doesn’t mind. They get along like old friends and not new acquaintances. Henry’s posh accent is oddly endearing

When Alex asks for his bikes, he doesn’t hesitate to agree.

If he closes his eyes, he can almost see exactly where Alex is going, where he’s taking Henry. He loved Alex once. He doesn’t need to think about it to know what it would feel like. 

He knows the asphalt streets winding to their suburbs like the back of his hand. He knows how Alex feels about Texas, the football field where they’d climb the fence in the middle of the night. Alex’s roots are here, intertwined with the oak tree in Liam’s backyard. He knows what it would feel like to bring your lover– your soulmate– home, which is odd. He’s never loved anyone to whom his home was something to learn, rather than second nature. Yet he knows it as surely as he knows his own name. He can almost feel his hands on the handlebars, the smooth metal. He'd feel his pulse, gently in his wrists and loudly in his heart, a rhythm he’d follow anywhere. 

Henry gets to feel his first Austin breeze with the love of his life. Alex shows him everything he’s ever loved. Liam gets to watch.

And that’s more than enough for tonight.

Liam still doesn’t believe in soulmates, but Alex might’ve, against all odds, found his.

~

**Author's Note:**

> some thank yous are due for this fic !
> 
> the biggest thank you to the grey area server. yall make my day every day and half of these concepts come directly from discussions there
> 
> another thank u to max and nick for beta reading for me <3 my deepest condolences for the rwrb obsession that seems to be never-ending
> 
> \- ori


End file.
